Spin-off companies that outlasted their parent companies

[bing101]

Not quite the same, but the giant nonprofit Kaiser Permanente health system that Henry Kaiser helped found (originally to provide health care to workers at his dam construction projects and shipyards) certainly overshadows what's left of his industrial empire.

Kaiser Aluminum is a more conventional spinoff that outlasted most of Henry Kaiser's other for-profit enterprises.

Yes and also there used to be a Kaiser Broadcasting in San Francisco like the former KBHK-TV (Call Letters bore the initials on the former leader Henry J. Kaiser) which is now owned by Paramount.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Broadcasting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KPYX

And yes the only company that hold the Kaiser name is Kaiser Permanente a major hospital chain in California.

[bing101]

Tower Records that used to be a major record store whose headquarters was based in Sacramento, CA. But today its spinoff company exists a music label holding the contracts of pop artists in Japan.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-Palette_Records
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Records

http://tower.jp/label/t-paletterecords

[JayhawkCO]

This isn't exactly the same thing, but obviously Netflix started as a DVD renting operation. Then they started to add a little streaming. Now they're a streaming company that has completely shut down the physical media portion.

[kurumi]

Radio Shack/Tandy is an interesting case, as the Radio Shack brand eventually dissolved for a while and the Tandy Leather brand emerged again (there was a Tandy Leather store in San Bruno until a few years ago)

Coleco (Connecticut Leather Company) is another leather brand that pivoted to electronics; a home video game console. (I only remember this because I'm a CT homer)

[Henry]

Amoco (pre-BP takeover) and Esso/Exxon both outlasted Standard Oil.

[bing101]

This may not exactly qualify, but AT&T. One of the largest companies ever now exists only as a file cabinet full of legal documents somewhere in Texas.

Split up in 1984 as part of settling an antitrust lawsuit into several companies. Later on, one of the spun-off "Baby Bells," SBC, acquired its former parent (and some of the other spinoffs) and began using AT&T as its corporate name. (I'm familiar with this once since both my wife and I are AT&T retirees.)

SBC was Pacific Bell in the 1980's -1990's I remember when SBC headquarters were based in San Francisco under the Pacific Bell name at one point before they moved to Dallas as the main headquarters as a result of SBC merging with AT&T.   In other words the one that holds the AT&T name was at one point was one of the regional baby bells whose service area covered California prior to being nationwide.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Bell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T

[catch22]

This may not exactly qualify, but AT&T. One of the largest companies ever now exists only as a file cabinet full of legal documents somewhere in Texas.

Split up in 1984 as part of settling an antitrust lawsuit into several companies. Later on, one of the spun-off "Baby Bells," SBC, acquired its former parent (and some of the other spinoffs) and began using AT&T as its corporate name. (I'm familiar with this once since both my wife and I are AT&T retirees.)

SBC was Pacific Bell in the 1980's -1990's I remember when SBC headquarters were based in San Francisco under the Pacific Bell name at one point before they moved to Dallas as the main headquarters as a result of SBC merging with AT&T.In other words the one that holds the AT&T name was at one point was one of the regional baby bells whose service area covered California prior to being nationwide.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Bell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T

SBC's headquarters was always in Texas (San Antonio, later Dallas).  PacBell (among others) was acquired by SBC, but SBC never moved their HQ to California.  Our local "Baby Bell," Ameritech, went through a similar takeover.  SBC kept a fairly large presence in Chicago afterwards but all the high-power suits worked out of Texas.

[bing101]

This may not exactly qualify, but AT&T. One of the largest companies ever now exists only as a file cabinet full of legal documents somewhere in Texas.

Split up in 1984 as part of settling an antitrust lawsuit into several companies. Later on, one of the spun-off "Baby Bells," SBC, acquired its former parent (and some of the other spinoffs) and began using AT&T as its corporate name. (I'm familiar with this once since both my wife and I are AT&T retirees.)

SBC was Pacific Bell in the 1980's -1990's I remember when SBC headquarters were based in San Francisco under the Pacific Bell name at one point before they moved to Dallas as the main headquarters as a result of SBC merging with AT&T.In other words the one that holds the AT&T name was at one point was one of the regional baby bells whose service area covered California prior to being nationwide.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Bell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T

SBC's headquarters was always in Texas (San Antonio, later Dallas).  PacBell (among others) was acquired by SBC, but SBC never moved their HQ to California.  Our local "Baby Bell," Ameritech, went through a similar takeover.  SBC kept a fairly large presence in Chicago afterwards but all the high-power suits worked out of Texas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwestern_Bell
Now I see what you mean SBC was Southwestern Bell prior to that based in Texas too.

[bing101]

Robinsons That name has its origins in Los Angeles as a department store that was later named as Robinsons-May but the Los Angeles one became Macy's.  However that name lives on as the name of Department Stores, Malls and online only stores in several countries like Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinsons-May

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Department_Store

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinsons_Malls


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinsons_Department_Stores_Online

[TheStranger]

Robinsons That name has its origins in Los Angeles as a department store that was later named as Robinsons-May but the Los Angeles one became Macy's.  However that name lives on as the name of Department Stores, Malls and online only stores in several countries like Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinsons-May

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Department_Store

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinsons_Malls


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinsons_Department_Stores_Online

The Robinsons in the Philippines has zero connection to Robinsons-May:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gokongwei

The company founder of the Filipino entity has Robinson as his middle name.

[bing101]

Robinsons That name has its origins in Los Angeles as a department store that was later named as Robinsons-May but the Los Angeles one became Macy's.  However that name lives on as the name of Department Stores, Malls and online only stores in several countries like Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinsons-May

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Department_Store

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinsons_Malls


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinsons_Department_Stores_Online

The Robinsons in the Philippines has zero connection to Robinsons-May:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gokongwei

The company founder of the Filipino entity has Robinson as his middle name.

Yes and it's a case of unrelated companies in different countries using the same name for local rights.

Here is another one Safeway outlive it's parent company Skaggs Company and the Safeway Name exists as brands within Albertsons inc.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skaggs_Companies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeway_Inc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertsons

[Road Hog]

Bank of America was bought out in 1999 by NationsBank, which adopted the smaller firm's name.

Ditto for GateHouse, which bought out Gannett in 2020 to become the nation's largest newspaper company and adopted the smaller partner's name.

A historical example is the Kingdom of Prussia, which took over one by one the various fiefdoms, dukedoms and margravates of modern-day Germany and by the 1870s had adopted the name of Germany.

[Route66Fan]

Not quite the same, but the giant nonprofit Kaiser Permanente health system that Henry Kaiser helped found (originally to provide health care to workers at his dam construction projects and shipyards) certainly overshadows what's left of his industrial empire.

Kaiser Aluminum is a more conventional spinoff that outlasted most of Henry Kaiser's other for-profit enterprises.

Yes and also there used to be a Kaiser Broadcasting in San Francisco like the former KBHK-TV (Call Letters bore the initials on the former leader Henry J. Kaiser) which is now owned by Paramount.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Broadcasting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KPYX

And yes the only company that hold the Kaiser name is Kaiser Permanente a major hospital chain in California.

I've heard of both Kaiser Permanente & Kaiser Broadcasting, but didn't know that there was a connection between them.

[bing101]

Verizon Inc it outlived it's former parent company Bell Atlantic which was one of the former baby bells of the 1980's that served Pennsylvania and New York.

Note Bell Atlantic merged with GTE to become what is now known as Verizon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Atlantic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon

[Dirt Roads]

Mainframe computer innovator CDC (Control Data Corporation) lives on as Ceridian, a major provider of software for human resource departments.  Not exactly a true spinoff, as when the original CDC began to eliminate the computer manufacturing business, the firm split into two entities: Ceridian and CDS (Control Data Systems), which still sold and supported mainframe computer systems for a while.  What little bit of CDS that still remains is now part of British telecom giant BT Group.

[WillWeaverRVA]

Lane Bryant is a spin-off of Charming Shoppes, a company that began with Fashion Bug in the 1980s; Charming ceased to exist in 2012.

[SP Cook]

SBC was Pacific Bell in the 1980's -1990's I remember when SBC headquarters were based in San Francisco under the Pacific Bell name at one point before they moved to Dallas as the main headquarters as a result of SBC merging with AT&T. 

The original AT&T was (foolishly, IMHO) broken up into seven regional companies.  One of those was SBC, which was given TX, OK, KS, MO, and AR.  Another was Pacific Telesis, which was a stupid name they quicky abandoned for "Pacific Bell" or "Pac Bell", which was given CA and the parts of Nevada AT&T owned (Las Vegas was part of the 20% of the country that was served by non-AT&T phone companies).  SBC bought Pacific Bell, along with two other "baby Bell" companies, then the remnants of AT&T itself, keeping/reviving that brand name. 

In the transactions, SBC (now AT&T) was the buyer, and the other companies, including Pacific Bell, were that which was being bought.  The HQ has always been in Dallas.

[Rothman]

Can you imagine the cell phone market if Bell, Inc. hadn't been broken up.  Eesh.

[SP Cook]

It would not have changed a bit, considering the cell phone would have been invented at the same time.  If not for that invention, we would still be suffering under the massive public policy mistake that the AT&T breakup was.

Understand what AT&T was.

It consisted of three main parts.  The local companies, which provided a telephone to every home under the doctrine of "universal service".  The Long Lines Department which sold long distance, and Western Electric, which made the equipment in unionized factories in America.  Local phone service was provided at a loss, while the LLD made plenty of money.  Now who called long distance?  Statistically the government, wealthy people and businesses.  That's right, phone service for the poor was subsidized by the wealthy, without any need of the government to be involved.

What did the breakup do?  Three things really.

- It broke up the local companies into regional ones.  And?  If I have my one and only phone company here where I live the fact that the one and only phone company in some place in Oregon where I will never live is the same or a different company is irrelevant.  Totally irrelevant. 

- It opened up long distance to competition.  Remember that local service was operated at a loss, and long distance paid for it.  Well, no more.  That means that the local regional companies had to make money from local service.  Which caused the costs of a home phone to skyrocket.  If the cell phone and things like VOIP had not been invented, poor or even middle class people would not be able to afford a phone today.

- It allowed third party phone equipment.  Western Electric laid off all its American unionized workers and all the replacements were throwaway crap made in communist China.

Huge mistake.  Today, of course, the "baby Bell" companies, survive on other things, the home phone is a thing of the past.  And rural Americans, where there is no cell service, suffer; and poor people's cell phones are subsidized by taxes.